The Amazing Absorbing Boy
I had to push myself a little with this novel, particularly at the beginning, where I couldn't seem to get hold of the subsidiary characters. I agree with the view of many other commenters that the novel is very episodic, and there isn't necessarily much of a through-line except for the narrator's painfully distant and difficult relationship with his apparently heedless and irresponsible father. I don't mind the playing around with the Trinidadian slang (the glossary was definitely necessary) and though I didn't get nearly all the comic-book references, in the end I didn't find that it was necessary; to appreciate the function of the comic-book material, you just have to have some basic knowledge about superhero characters, namely that they are generally metaphors for outsiders trying to deal with and make positive aspects of themselves that make them conspicuous or feared. In that respect, the comic-book aspect of this novel (reflected in the title, and expanded upon and explained for us in a chapter near the end) works very well for a story about an immigrant. The amazing, absorbing boy is, on one level, a consoling superhero construct built by Samuel, the narrator, and a Trinidadian friend with a disfiguring skin disease, to help deal with said skin disease by pretending the friend has the superpower of absorbing the characteristics of anything he touches, no matter how alien. At another level, of course, it applies to Samuel himself, immigrant in an alien culture and superficially acquiring its characteristics.
I hate to admit it, but a minor detail put me off what could have been a thoroughly joyful "alien" look at a city I've lived in for more than 30 years, Toronto. The Toronto Reference Library, which the author has almost certainly visited, is well described, but what a silly mistake - and a repeated one - to say it's on Bloor Street. (It's a block north of Bloor Street, and it's not possible to step out or look out of the library on to that street as Samuel and his acquaintances do). And so I find myself discounting all the other city-knowledge that the author is presumed to have when presenting us with funny or poignant new views of specific places - I find myself saying, "the author's not Torontonian, so this satire isn't quite on point." If I were a comic-book nerd, I might have similar responses to a mistake in the comic-book sections, or a Trinidadian native, to a mistake in the Trinidad details. This is the problem with very culturally or geographically specific work, and this novel is nothing if not dependent on its cultural and geographical details.
That said, I was irritated but not entirely put off. Samuel is Maharaj in his general cultural background (Indo-Trinidadian, immigrated to Ontario) though not in biographical detail or (as far as I know) character. So I read Samuel's Indo-Trinidadian-based viewpoints with confidence that they're based in experience, and enjoy the trip into something that's just as alien and interesting as cold, worried, hasty Toronto is for Samuel himself.
The book was more fun that I'm making it sound here, and anything that helps me understand the folks around me can never be a wasted investment of time. But I doubt I'd re-read it.
